Page 13 of Miss Dashing
In any case, DeWitt had avoided taking over the family businesses—his womenfolk were appalled to think of their darling fellow dirtying his hands in Grandpapa’s trade—and he’d indulged his own whims for a time.
“If you see no obligations between us,” Phillip said, wondering when his mattress had grown so lumpy, “then frolicking on the stage has turned you into a dolt. Would your family have enjoyed limitless credit at the livery during your absence if I’d not had a quiet word with Dabney three months after your departure? Would Deevers have kept your sisters in new boots without my willingness to pay down his bills by three-quarters before they were presented?”
DeWitt scrubbed his hands across his handsome face, then brushed dark curls back from his forehead. Stage business, no doubt.
“How much?”
“I didn’t keep track, and I’m not asking for repayment. One assists neighbors in need. Now I’m a neighbor in need, and you will assist me.”
“I haven’t accepted the invitation yet. Mama is in alt, Lissa isn’t saying much, and Tavistock suggested I discuss the matter with you. I don’t care for house parties.”
“Neither do I, and I’ve yet to attend one. There is bound to be dancing, at which I am hopeless, and people speaking French, another forlorn hope in my case, and fribbles dangling after merry widows, when I’ve no patience with fribbles and no experience with merry widows.”
“None?”
“With merry widows? Only a little.” Though all of it lovely.
DeWitt pushed away from the window. “I was one of the fribbles. First, because I was a fribble—between terms at university, finished with university and available to make up the numbers—and then because I was among the actors hired to entertain the guests. At house parties, we assisted with theatricals, ran scenes, did recitations, filled out the sets on the dance floor, and so forth. Anything for a square meal.”
“Anything?”
DeWitt colored up like a small boy caught purloining a pie. “Don’t be insulting.”
Good God.And the memories made Gavin DeWitt blush. Interesting. “Did you meet any Bromptons in your travels?”
DeWitt settled on the vanity stool. “The house parties I was dragooned into were mostly up north, far from the blandishments of Town. No Bromptons, though you should know that as a family they have a reputation for self-indulgence.”
Save for Hecate, the lone beacon of sense and probity among a passel of wastrels. “Dueling?”
“One heard rumors.”
“Does one pack his favorite pair of Mantons?” Not a question Phillip could put to Miss Brompton, and that was half the reason for demanding DeWitt’s company.
“No. The Earl of Nunn will have a lovely pair gathering dust in his armory, if the occasion arises. Do you truly want me to come along, or are you trying to keep me from running off again?”
“If you run off again,” Phillip said, rising and smoothing out the wrinkled coverlet, “you will take me with you. I have acquired a deportment instructress in the person of Miss Hecate Brompton, but at a house party, I will encounter circumstances she cannot foresee, venues beyond her ken—male venues. Your job will be to keep me from falling on my arse before an audience of fribbles and dandies.”
“A thankless and Herculean task.”
Phillip regarded DeWitt with the same patience he turned on Herne when that good beast was helpless to resist a mud puddle.
“I didn’t know,” DeWitt said. “I had no idea my mother and sisters would encounter such financial difficulties in my absence. The bank notes and bills all just wafted about me. Amaryllis told me what to sign and what to send on to the solicitors. I could use some instruction myself, you know. A lot of instruction.”
Ah, youth. Youth and masculine pride. “You don’t want to ask your sister for a few pointers?”
“Tried that. Lissa says the ledgers are very straightforward, then goes back to rhapsodizing about Tavistock’s beer-brewing schemes. I want to like the fellow, but honestly, Heyward… I mean, my lord. Amaryllis is obnoxiously happy to be his marchioness, and the ledgers don’t tell mewhyan expenditure was made, or if it was thecorrectexpenditure for a given need.”
“Then we have a bargain,” Phillip said. “I have a thorough grasp of estate ledgers, and you know how to manage the merry widows. Fetch the ledgers, and I’ll have my valet see to my packing.”
DeWitt grinned and stuck out a hand. “A bargain, my lord. Well met. No Mantons necessary.”
Lord Phillip Vincent had made an entrance, and likely without realizing it. He’d walked his horse—in hand—up the manicured Nunnsuch carriage drive. When a worried groom had trotted around from the stable, his lordship had insisted on seeing the horse situated himself.
The same groom had told the head lad, who’d told the head footman, who’d told the butler, who’d told Hecate that the horse hadn’t been lame. His lordship had walked the beast the last mile tostretch his legs and enjoy the view.
Nunnsuch was a lovely property, dating back to a time when successive sound matches had resulted in the earldom’s coffers being if not full, then at least consistently solvent. The house sat in whitewashed neoclassical splendor on a gentle rise, the requisite Capability Brown landscaped park adding to its air of bucolic repose.
Hecate had never regarded the family seat as home, but she had enjoyed her visits.
